High Sticking
by Mini Goat
Summary: Over the hump of adjusting to being a teenager again, Sammy has to find a way to occupy her time
1. Taking a Different Track

**_AN: _**_It's Monday. You know what that means. _

_I will admit, I know very little about pole-vaulting so if I get any details absurdly wrong blame Wiggiesmom for the idea. Lol. Arguably I think this would be something challenging that Sammy WOULD enjoy trying out. _

**High Sticking**

**Taking a Different Track**

"Miss Carter, a minute of your time." The tall slender track coach called out to her.

"Sure thing, Coach Bonnie." It had taken Sammy weeks to stop calling the woman 'Ma'am' or 'Coach Reynolds'. Some stuff just became your personality. She jogged over after finishing her stretch routine.

"How's your upper body strength, Sammy?"

"Ma…er…coach?"

The woman grinned. "You're one of my fastest sprinters but lots of kids are fast, Sam. How do you feel about launching yourself through the air?"

"As in?"

"There is an opening in the pole vaulting team. If you're interested, I'd really like you to try out. I think you would be a good fit." And then coach Bonnie appealed to the thing Sammy loved the most. "It's the only sport that requires math to be good at it."

Sammy's eyes lit up.

"That's what I thought." The woman said with a grin. "Try outs are this weekend. We have extra equipment the Rotary club donated if you don't have the money for a pole yet or want to test the waters before you commit."

Sammy thought about it for a minuet. "When are meets?"

"Wednesdays."

"I'd have to skip watching hockey practice." She said softly to herself.

"I'm pretty sure your boyfriend will understand, Sammy." Her coach said. Even if he didn't there was more to high school than boys in Bonnie's opinion. Sammy was very young to be in such an obviously committed relationship anyway. She wasn't sure she'd be as ok with this as her parents apparently were.

"He would." Sammy said brightly. "My best friend is dating his wingman though and she's going to have to decide who she wants to cheer on." Sammy said in amusement, knowing full well the woman had mistaken her reluctance for being boy crazy rather than concern for a friend's time management. As if she, Sam Carter was even remotely capable of being boy crazy made her want to laugh. Especially over Jack O'Neill. Arguably, had she met him as a cadet she _might _have been a little starry eyed. Even if he had been married. He was a good looking man at any age though honestly, his looks weren't what she was in love with.

"Well, try out is 2 pm this weekend." Her coach told her.

"All right, I'll talk to my folks and see what they think." Sammy said.

* * *

"So how interested are you in doing this, Sammy?" Wil was asking her.

Sammy shrugged. "She just kind of dropped it on me honestly. It's going to be a pretty big time commitment beyond everything else. I'd have to change piano practice days."

"Do you really need lessons, Sammy?" Mare asked her pointedly.

Sammy had the decency to blush. "Ok, not technically." She admitted.

Mary smiled with amusement. So many things about this girl made so much more sense knowing exactly who she really was. "I know you enjoy them, which I'm sure is why you signed up for them in the first place, but I think if you keep doing the things you have always done eventually you will get bored with everything and I'd honestly hate to see you take that out on Jon." Not that they didn't have a right to move on with their lives if they chose to, she thought, but it would be a shame to see the effort Jack and Sam went through for these kids to have them strike out as a couple.

"I don't think I'm capable of getting bored with Jon, Aunt Mare." Sammy said with amusement. "He's actually just a bit too random to ever be boring."

Wil laughed. "She has a point, Mare." He told his wife.

Mary shook her head in amusement. Jon was a good kid but Sammy was right, he was a tiny bit random. It made her wonder how much control the General had to exert on his natural tendencies to not be labeled the town kook in DC. She wasn't sure he wasn't anyway. There had been some rumors.

"So, I don't know. I guess I'll give it a shot and see if I even make the team and see if I like it." She shrugged. Lynn would just have to either split her time or hang out by herself at the rink while the guys practiced. Jay would be there more often than not, though he was making noises about getting a job lately.

"Well, don't let us twist your arm." Wil told her dryly.

Sammy giggled.

"No giggling, Carter." Jon muttered from behind her as he came in the door before plopping an affectionate kiss on top of her head.

Sammy snorted in mirth. "I was beginning to think you weren't going to make it for dinner."

"And miss out on Aunt Mare's beef stew? Are you kidding? Flying space snakes couldn't keep me away."

"Hey technically…" she said laughing.

"Yah yah." He said grabbing the empty chair. "Mrs. B. got a late shipment and Myka couldn't get in this week to log it in so she was trying to do it all herself."

"I thought she'd gone off to be a secret service agent?" Myka had finished school recently and been tapped by some Dickenson guy fresh out of university.

"She still wanders in and out. Just not as much. Had some time off after her training session."

"Like leave after basic."

"More or less. She doesn't talk about it much for obvious reasons."

"That's just par around here. Wait until she figures out her parent's employee is her boss's golf buddy." Wil said.

"Oh no… Jack already knows." Sammy said in amused horror. She'd bet some money on him having something to do with Myka's appointment too.

Jon smirked.

"Jon. Honestly." Mary told him. Her voice exasperated.

"What? I don't have any control over anything he does." Jon shoveled a chunk of potato into his mouth.

"He doesn't, Mare." Wil said.

"I know, I know. Should we warn Sam?"

"The only one it makes sense to warn is Myka and she'll find out soon enough." Sammy said with a philosophical shrug.

"That poor girl," Wil said with a snort.

"You guys are terrible." Mary admonished all three of them.

"It will build character." Jon said with a grin. "Sammy, what's this scuttlebutt about you trying out for pole vaulting?" he asked her with a shoulder nudge.

"You heard about that, huh?"

"Kind of hard not to when your coach is buddies with my coach, Carter."

"Oh, yah, suppose." Sam poked at her meal.

"Sammy."

She looked at him shyly.

"I think you'd be great at it."

Sammy's expression went from shy to beaming and Jon didn't notice the amused look Wil and Mare exchanged at Jon's huge answering grin.

"Ok, but Lynn is probably going to be mad."

"Why?"

"Well, meets are on Wednesdays the same day you have practice which means she either has to watch you guys alone or come to my stuff alone." She explained.

"Oh, that. I wouldn't worry about it too much."

"But we're the first real friends she's ever had, Jon. Now we're making her choose."

"Sammy, you're worried that Lynn won't be able to spend time with Brian if she has to split her time between the two of you. Aren't you?" Mary asked her.

Sammy looked a little startled that the older woman had figured it out so quickly then mentally kicked herself as she should have expected she might. "I don't want her to have to openly lie to her mom. It's one thing for her to hang out with me while I hang out there and another for her to go because she personally wants to be there."

"Jon is Jay's best friend, that's reason enough for her to be there as long as she goes on days Jay can be there too." Mary said. "On days he's not, she can go to your meets."

"I probably should have thought of that on my own." Sammy admitted.

"Sometimes it's hard to see the forest for the trees, kiddo." Wil told her. "Jon, you can keep an eye on Lynn for Sammy right?"

Jon executed a sloppy salute then went back to devouring his second helping of stew.

"There. Problem solved." Wil said.

* * *

They were sitting in the living room together on the couch, a spiral notebook between them. "Ok, so the math is pretty simple." Jon said and scribbled the equation on the top of the sheet.

"The mass is the same both sides so you don't need that number." She told him.

"Worried I'll find out what you weigh, Carter?" He asked her, warmth in his chuckle and she flashed back to a conversation with Sam about what he wanted to say when he used Carter in that tone.

"Not even a little. I weight one ten right now depending on the size of my last meal and if I've pooped today." She said primly.

Jon gave her a scandalized look.

"You'll catch flies." She told him.

His jaw snapped shut. "Ok… disregard the mass. You can run about 9.5 meters per second so we'll square that to account for our mathematically polite gravity on Earth.

"Assuming I don't do this on another planet, of course."

"Of course." It amused him that she was letting him do the math even though it was her purview not his. "So you technically could clear about twenty feet if you wanted to though I wouldn't recommend it to start." He admitted.

"Do you do this much math for hockey?"

"Not usually." He admitted.

"It's just transferring the kinetic energy from my feet to the pole to my center of gravity really."

"Yup."

"Seems like gymnastics."

"It is a little." Jon agreed. "But with more manliness."

Sammy giggled. "Mary told me I should try doing new things because she was worried I'd get bored otherwise." She admitted to him.

"Was that a suggestion we date other people?" Jon asked her, concerned.

"I think the opposite. I think she didn't want me looking at myself being bored and start thinking getting rid of you would cure it."

"Well, I wouldn't worry too much about it." He told her gruffly.

"You aren't worried I'll get bored with you?"

"I'm always worried you'll get bored with me." He admitted. "What I'm not worried about is me ever getting bored with you. I'd probably just hang around in the background until you needed a dose of lunatic."

"I'm not going to live that admission down, am I?"

"Not in a million lifetimes no." He told her but softened his opinion with a gentle kiss. "It's kind of nice being able to do this when I want, Sam." He said of their kiss.

"Yah. It kind of is, isn't it?"

"We're going to be adults again before you know it and hopefully planning our life together like normal people in a few years."

She chuckled. "Jon, you've already been doing that for a year." She teased him.

"No way am I taking my chances on you hooking up with some random archeology professor or something. I can live with a really long engagement though if that's what you want."

"Talk to me again about it in three years, Jon." She told him gently but gave him a kiss to show she meant it.

"Don't worry, Sam, I have no intention of tying you down until I've graduated the academy and you have a doctorate."

"Ok." She agreed and snuggled into his shoulder.


	2. Solutions

"So you're not mad?"

"Why would I be mad, Sammy?" Lynn asked her.

"I… ok, I thought you might be a little tiny bit put out about it that's all."

Lynn shrugged. "You don't need to schedule your life around mine Sammy."

Sammy bit her lip as they walked home from school together. The early autumn air wasn't crisp yet but the smell of ripe apples wafted from neighborhood trees.

"Look, I appreciate what you were doing but I've been figuring out how to get around my psycho mom all my life. This is the first time _anyone_ has even tried to actively help by helping me personally deal with her rather than trying to convince her she was acting crazy. You guys are the first ones to get that she isn't going to change and I appreciate it, I really do. But I can figure out how to spend time with Brian on my own if you guys don't have time. Honest."

"You're not actually making me feel better." Sammy admitted.

"I wasn't trying to." Lynn agreed because she thought being honest was more important than coddling her friend's feelings. She lied enough to her mom for survival. She didn't want to lie to her friends too, even if the truth was brutal and ugly.

"Do you like babysitting Gracie?"

Lynn snorted at the abrupt change of subject. Except it wasn't. Sammy was clearly still trying to solve problems. "I love babysitting Gracie." She said agreeably knowing where this was going.

"Ok, You know Aunt Sam's crazy schedule. I'll have Uncle Wil pick you up and drop you off because you'd be taking my workload according to us on the days I can't watch her because of practice. I don't think Aunt Sam would mind if someone came to check on you either." She said with a small grin.

Lynn rolled her eyes. "Have you always been this devious?"

"I plead the fifth." She said with a bigger grin.

"Somehow I have a feeling Jon has something to do with this sneaky side of you." Lynn told her best friend pointedly.

"It was more Uncle Jack if you want to get technical but yah."

"Am I off base here or is he actually just a big kid?"

"Jon?"

"Uncle Jack, you turd."

"Oh yah, he's always been like that. He's good at faking being all serious and scary for work but he's kind of pretending he's an adult really." Sammy admitted.

"We all pretend something." Lynn said softly.

Sammy nodded in agreement. Aunt Sam pretended to have confidence for years. She should know. A small smile played about her mouth. Like Jon, it had taken her a while to actively think of herself as a separate person. Jack pretended he was an adult. Daniel pretended he wasn't sad. Teal'c pretended he didn't think literally everything humans did was hilarious. Jon pretended he wasn't lonely. Zulfi pretended he wasn't insecure. The list went on and on. She pretended she knew what she wanted to do with her life. So far she hadn't even talked to Jon about that but she realized Mary at least suspected by some of her comments lately.

"Do you know what you want to do when you grow up?"

"Anything that involves not living with my mother." Lynn said succinctly.

Sammy laughed. "Ok, I'll give you that one. I mean like a job and I don't mean crap we do to get through school. Real life stuff."

"I don't know. I used to want to be a grade-school teacher but they don't make much money these days and it's a lot of hard work." She thought for a while as she walked. "I guess I should figure out something I can do with art even though my mom says there's no money in the field."

Sammy shook her head. "There's lots of good paying jobs in art. Engineering, video games, scientific development, illustration."

Lynn shrugged. "I suppose."

"If you don't like having what you make dictated you should go into psychiatry."

"I need a psychiatrist." Lynn said dryly.

"True." Sammy chuckled. "But so do I and Jon definitely needs one. Look there, you have two guaranteed patients right at your fingertips." She nudged Lynn with her shoulder.

Lynn chuckled. "Ok, I'll bite, why do you think I'd be good at psychiatry?"

"I don't know if it's because you've spent your whole life trying to understand what's going on in your mom's head or what, but you really just seem to get people. You notice things about them right away like that Jay is gay and that Jon is in love with me and Uncle Jack isn't as much of a grown up as he pretends to be."

"But that's all really obvious stuff."

"Not to most people it's not, Lynn. Jon didn't notice why Jay was being a jerk until Uncle Jack pointed it out to him and they are friends now but they didn't start out that way. And ok everyone noticed Jon was in love with me, that one was pretty obvious but how many people would see Uncle Jack with all those decorations on his uniform and notice the amused glint in his eye at getting one up on your mom? No one but you that's who." Sammy thought for a moment. "And if regular people bore you, why not criminal psychology? You could help put creeps like Conner in jail."

"Where he belongs." Lynn said with a firm frown.

"For life." Sammy agreed.

"I guess I could talk to Miss Stephanie about taking the honors psych course next year, see if I like it." She said thoughtfully. "But I'm guessing even though you got off track this was supposed to be about how you don't know what to do with yourself."

"There you go figuring people out again." Sammy said with a rueful smile.

"I bet you feel like you have some pretty big shoes to step into with your aunt and uncle."

"Oh yah, and grandpa too." She said of her dad. "He was a general."

"Was?"

"He died a couple years ago." Sammy explained.

"That's how you ended up in foster care, isn't it?" Lynn asked her gently.

Sammy smile was rueful and ironic. Lynn had no idea how close to the truth that statement was. She supposed some of the truth was warranted here. "I lost my mom a long time ago. Grandpa's cancer came back and well…" She shrugged and surprised herself by sniffling back a couple tears she thought she'd shed ages ago.

"I'm so sorry, Sammy. You must miss him so much." She hugged Sam spontaneously. It had been the first time Sammy had ever really spoken of her life before coming to Colorado. Jon seemed to know but he wasn't exactly an open book about the subject.

"I do. Don't get me wrong, Uncle Wil and Aunt Mary have been great."

"I know. But they aren't your grandpa."

"In some ways, they are a little better." Sammy admitted.

"Like a cool aunt and uncle that kind of get you more than your parents do, huh?"

She chuckled. "Yah, kind of like that."

"Don't sweat not knowing what you want to do yet. I think Jon is the only one who does and I think it's to make his uncle proud of him more than anything else."

"You do?"

"Yah even Zulfi is only becoming a doctor because his dad is making him." Lynn said chuckling. They were at her door. "See you tomorrow, bestie." Lynn said, her code for 'be online after dinner and I'll try to get on when my psycho mom isn't looking'.

"See you tomorrow. Hey how about we get together and compare notes on that rest of our lives stuff some time?"

"Cool." Lynn wrinkled her nose at the waft of cigarette smoke smell as she opened her front door.

Sammy winked. It was only a couple more years and they both knew it.


	3. It's Just Math Right?

Sammy had practiced, with Jon's help of course. He'd just added the pole vaulting stuff to her track practice workout. So she ran laps in Zulfie's old hockey gear that Jon had painstakingly cleaned for her before he'd put it on her. Then they went inside and he had her run at the horse and use her arms to launch herself over it a few times then he had her using the weight equipment to continue the upper body strength training Wil had started with the cord of wood last winter.

It was a lot like some of their work out session at SGC really other than they weren't sparring because they didn't figure it would be helpful for either of their chosen sports and might lead to other things they wanted to do to and with each other. Jon was trying to be good and wrestling with a sweaty Carter wasn't going to help his physical frustration very much. He was already having an embarrassing number of dreams about their older selves doing things he had to wait at least another year for.

"So you really don't know what you want to do, huh?"

Sammy sighed as she did reps with a kettle bell. "Nope."

"I think Lynn is right."

"About what?"

"I don't think you should worry about it."

"Why do you say that?" She asked him.

"Well, when you were little, you wanted to be an astronaut."

"Yah."

"And you told me once forever ago that you thought about being a biochemist for a while."

"I did."

"Well there you go."

"There I go where?"

"You didn't become either of those things."

"I kind of did."

He chuckled. "True, but not even remotely in the way you expected." He pointed out. "Rowing machine." He said and dragged her over to her next torture session.

Sammy groaned in protest but let him take her to the rowing machine and sat. "All right, I will concede that nothing about my life turned out the way I had planned in a way that I could have predicted."

"And if you went back in time and told Jack of twenty years ago where his life would be right now including you and I, do you think he'd believe you?"

"I think he'd look at me like I'd lost my mind and I wouldn't do that to him anyway because there's nothing that could stop what happened."

"She'd probably be with Marty."

"Which would be sad because those were Jolinar's feelings not hers but if she wasn't in love with Jack she might never realize it."

"Exactly because he'd be happily married and some other crazy suicidal guy would have been picked for the job and Danny would have died on that mission and you and I would not be having his conversation because we wouldn't exist." He shrugged. "And who's to say my being gone all the time wouldn't have ended with Sara and I getting divorced anyway." He admitted.

"I think you guys would have been ok."

"Possibly and I don't think I want to know either way." There had been cracks in that foundation before Charlie's death that he didn't talk about as there was no point in hurting Sara further than he had. They might have patched them with time but it was just as likely that it would have led the other way too. He knew himself though; he'd likely have stuck it out even if he was unhappy. Going the other way, Charlie would have adored his little sister. Probably would have petitioned he and Sam to get together sooner too if he and Sara had gotten divorced because they weren't working out and not because they lost Charlie. He stomped on those thoughts. He wasn't Jack. He had Jack's memories and because of them he loved the woman in front of him with all his heart but everything Jack went through to get to that point wasn't him. "No shirking on your reps Carter."

"I do not shirk." She said in a mock offended tone.

"Want to discuss your crunches?"

"Absolutely." She said. "Not."

He chuckled. "I know. If it sucks, why do we keep doing it to ourselves?"

"Because the pain makes you feel alive." They said together, quoting their favorite Squid.

"How do you suppose they are doing?"

"Sam would know."

"We should ask. It's the polite thing to do."

"What are you up to? You aren't going to trick him again, are you?" Frank was a super nice guy but… not as bright as he could be. He was well liked though, especially by Sam's former lab tech.

"Nah. I just kinda miss the guy. He was fun."

"He's not going to buy you beer Jon."

Jon looked at her offended. "I love you. I support you. I've given you the best years of my life and this is how you repay me?"

Sammy laughed while she rowed. "Conversations like these are exactly why I'm not allowed to go to your apartment at night by myself anymore."

He leered at her. "No. It was the whole one inch from taking each other's virginity thing Samantha." He said in her ear in a low purr that made her blush brightly and squirm a little in memory. "She knows sooner or later one or both of us was going to lose control. Probably both." He grinned. "Definitely both if I have anything to say about it."

"Jon." She finally squeaked out, scandalized.

"Yes Samantha?"

"It is very hard to work out with you saying stuff like that to me." She admonished him.

"Bet your heart rate revved up though." He said with a grin.

"You don't have to get me so horny I can't think to do that." She said laughing ruefully.

"But it was more fun this way."

"For you." She said laughing.

"Don't even try to lie to me that you aren't going to do something about that for yourself." He grinned. "Or should I remind you of the invisible colonel in the shower incident."

"I seem to remember having help… sir." She said chuckling.

"Yes but no one but you knew I was there at all. If you wanted me to leave, you would have said so."

He wasn't helping her mental state but she'd gotten more reps on the rowing machine in than she might have otherwise.

"Come on." He said, tugging her off the rowing machine.

"Where are we going?"

"To make out under the bleachers like horny teenagers Carter." He growled.

"We are horny teenagers." She said laughing.

"Good time to do it then." He said reasonably and scooted her out of the weight house

Sammy giggled and he pulled her in front of him. "Stop giggling or you're going to need more than Chapstick when I'm done with you." He growled.


End file.
